


From Italy with Blood

by VictoriaLucas0417



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Developing Relationship, Episode AU: s03e02 Primavera, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, M/M, Murder Husbands, Murder presents as a form of courtship, Mutual Pining, Poor Abigail, Poor Will, Poor Will Graham, Scars, Slow Burn, courting, more tags as the story continues, poor hannibal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:28:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28674474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictoriaLucas0417/pseuds/VictoriaLucas0417
Summary: After Will has healed from his physical wounds from his last meeting with Hannibal, he heads to Italy to heal emotionally. Upon arriving, he is surprised by the gift in the chapel. It would be rude not to reciprocate after all.ORHannibal and Will exchange murderous Valentines wrapped in blood throughout Italy as they try to make sense of the past and their current feelings.
Relationships: Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 13
Kudos: 32





	1. The Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in Season 3 Episode 2. A lot of the first chapter will be cannon compliant, but then it will diverge. Hope you guys like it and as always, thank you for taking the time to click and read my story. It means so much to me.

Will couldn’t say that traveling to Italy had been a spur of the moment decision. Plenty of planning was involved. He had reached out to Alana to watch his dogs, finally fixed the boat motor that had been taking up an entire corner of his living room for months if not years, found a boat, and sailed to Europe. However, all of these steps happened with Will in a sort of autopilot mode. He couldn’t explain why. The closest he ever got was talking to Jack about why he called Hannibal that night. The night their relationship changed. They had been dancing on the blade of a knife and Will found himself on the wrong end of it. Did he still want to run away with him? Part of him always would. That feeling was enough to pull him forward for now. He packed the rest of the supplies he would need, untied the boat from shore, and was off.

Upon making it to Italy, Will found himself in the Norman chapel in Palermo. His lips twitched at the sight of the skull immortalized on the floor. Most days were spent talking through his feelings with Abigail. He knew she wasn’t really there, but whenever he looked at that part of his past too closely, the pain in his stomach flared and he felt like his stiches were coming apart and the healed scar would open, never to fully close again.

When not speaking to Abigail, Will watched the others that visited the chapel. Some tourists made their way inside the towering cathedral all wide eyes and open mouths. There were many regulars from the city who visited for mass or for their own personal prayers. He watched as weary souls would enter the chapel, light candles and bow their heads, and by the time they left, their faces looked as if a great burden had been lifted. Will wished he could pray. Wished that by whispering his secrets to the warm air of the chapel he too could feel his burden lift from his chest. He longed to be able to take a deep breath and feel his lungs expand and contract without the catch caused from his pain. But he knew no one was listening. Like Hannibal, Will believed in some sort of God or higher power, but he knew the truth. God was not listening. He would not intervene. It was inelegant.

On rare occasions when Will stayed for mass, he couldn’t help but think about how happy Hannibal would be if the walls were to shake apart and the roof cave in on the full pews and choir singing their praises to the very entity that watched it happen. _God must enjoy killing. He does it often._

After about a week of lingering in the chapel, Will finds part of it taped off with crime scene tape. His heart stutters and then thunders in his chest. He makes his way inside and finds that a curtain has been hung to keep prying eyes away from the scene. Part of him wants to see what is hidden. He feels drawn to it. _What did you leave for me, Hannibal?_

It does not take long for him to be pulled away by some official looking gentlemen with a lot of questions for him. The main one being Commentodore Pazzi of the Questura di Firenze. He knows of Will. “I read all about your incarceration,” he says the words but Will can hear all the questions behind it, burning to be asked. He is not amused.

“Keep reading. I was acquitted.” Will hates still having to introduce himself as the guy that didn’t kill all those people.

Pazzi doesn’t just know Will. After more back and forth it is clear he knows Hannibal as well. Or at least knows of him. The young Lithuanian man with a love for Botecelli had slipped through Pazzi’s fingers 20 years ago taking Pazzi’s reputation with him. 

When he hands Will the photo of a young Hannibal Lecter, Will’s breath catches again. He hasn’t seen his face in over 8 months. Even back then, he had the same piercing eyes and sharp cheekbones. He was beautiful. This killer that mutilated bodies and elevated them to art still makes Will’s heart race out of fear and maybe something more.

As Will leaves the station with the crime scene photos Pazzi gave him, he knows Pazzi will not give up. He sees this as his chance to finally catch Hannibal. Will isn’t interested in being used as a pawn or bait or whatever else Pazzi has in mind. He is still trying to figure out his own motives. He heads back to the chapel, not noticing Pazzi’s eye lingering after him.

***

After speaking to Will Graham, Pazzi has two paths before him. He can keep Will close and capture Hannibal when he makes himself known to the other man and Pazzi has no doubt he will do so. Or he can call in this tip to Mason Verger’s tip line. He knows that if he turns in Hannibal’s whereabouts to Mason, the doctor will be tortured and killed. As an officer of the law, he thought that outcome should bother him more than it does, but he knows Hannibal’s crimes and cruelty. He also knows of his cunning. He had escaped justice countless times before. If he is going to meet his end, it will need to be by a hand made of the same cloth. Maybe violence can put an end to violence in this case. Pazzi runs a hand roughly over his face, looking across his desk at the picture of his wife. She would not forgive this choice if she knew.

On his way home from work, he ducks into a phone booth and makes the call. For what it is worth, he doesn’t do it solely for the money, but he would be lying if he said it didn’t help him make the decision. According to the voice on the other end of the line, he needs to get fresh, clear fingerprints from the doctor. He knows getting that close is dangerous. He is sure somewhere in Hannibal’s memory palace, Pazzi’s face lingers. He had been close. Hannibal knows him. This is where Will could be handy. He could be both bait and distraction, and Pazzi knows just where to find him.

***

When Will reenters the chapel, he ducks under the police tape and sits on the stairs. He pulls the photos from the scene from the manila envelope with trembling fingers. He isn’t sure if the shaking came from nerves or excitement, if he has to guess, probably both. Usually, his gift didn’t work as well with pictures, but empathizing with Hannibal is not the same as empathizing with a nameless, faceless killer. He knows Hannibal. Intimately. He closes his eyes and tips his bead back on the stairs letting the pendulum swing.

It is beautiful. It is monstrous. Hannibal had killed, skinned, bent, broke, and folded a man into an origami heart and mounted him on a tri pod to display over the skull on the floor of the chapel. The image he himself had sited as a reminder of mortality.

Will reaches out to touch it. Hannibal left him his broken heart. He broke another man to show Will how much he had broken him. The sheer strength needed to complete this picture was breathtaking in it’s cruelty and magnitude. Will is brought back to a memory of Hannibal in his office when they were discussing Randall Tier’s kills. _Can you imagine tearing a person apart?_ This isn’t exactly that, but it is close. When Will’s hand touches the slightly sticky flesh of the broken man’s back, he feels a pulse and the heart begins to unfurl into a strange faceless creature with antlers. Will takes a step back. He hadn’t seen the stag or anything like it since the night part of him died on the floor of Hannibal’s kitchen. As he lost consciousness, he watched the stag die. He had not had time to mourn its loss before he was pulled under the bloody water of his stream.

When he comes back to the present, it is with gasp as if he had been submerged under water only to kick and fight his way back to the surface. “I definitely feel closer to Hannibal here,” he says with a nervous chuckle, wrapping his arms around himself. “God only knows where I would be without him.” Will rubs his eyes, causing his glasses to hang precariously from his face. He takes another deep breath, relishing in the fact that he is able to do so without the familiar catch in his chest. He is sure it will come back, but right now, he feels more whole than he has in months.

He looks over to his image of Abigail. “He left us his broken heart.”

“How did he know were were here?” Her face mirrors the slight incredulity he feels.

“He didn’t, but he knew we would come.” And upon hearing himself say it, he knows it is true. Hannibal could have killed him. The doctors had called the cut “surgical.” It was destructive, but not so destructive that he would die. Just destructive enough that he would lie forever with the memory of being gutted. The way Hannibal felt Will had gutted him with his betrayal. He knew and a small part of Hannibal probably hoped he would seek him out. And here he is. Unable to stay away.

His image of Abigail voiced what he wished to be true. “He misses us.”

Will fights the urge to shake his head. “Hannibal follows several trains of thought a once without distraction from any – and one of the trains is always for his own amusement.” He looks over his glasses at Abigail.

Her face falls a little. “He’s playing with us.”

“Always,” he agreed with the fear. “Still want to go with him?”

His Abigail, their Abigail sits next to him on the stairs and looks him straight in the eye. “Yes.”

He knows this is a part of him. He knows that a part of him, growing louder the longer he is in this chapel aches to find Hannibal and go with him, but he can not hide those feelings from himself using Abigail to cope with them any longer.

“He gave you back to me and he took you away.” He looks over at her soft, pale face and her bright eyes. He feels the catch start to come back in his chest. “It’s Lucy and the football. He just keeps pulling you away.” He shakes his head and looks away from her. “What if no one died? What if we all left together? Like we were supposed to after he served the lamb. Where would we have gone?”

“In some other world?”

“In some other world,” He agrees.

“He said he made a place for us.”

“A place was made for you, Abigail, in this world. It was the only place I could make for you.” He watches as his vision of Abigail bleeds out again and disappears. He has to stop dragging her memory back into this. He has to stop using how he knows she felt as a cover and mirror for his own coping. She needed to rest. She deserved to rest. He needed to say goodbye.

He closes his eyes and hangs his head, saying goodbye to Abigail and her memory, and trying for what feels like the hundredth time to pray. He isn’t even sure what for anymore.

With his head bowed he misses that from the upper level window, Hannibal watches him. His features disciplined into neutrality minus the slight softening around his eyes as he turns away and disappears.

***

It is dark when Pazzi comes to call on Will again in the chapel.

“Are you praying?” Pazzi asks walking towards the man who is stretched out on the stairs looking both relaxed and tense. Will’s mind is made up, but Pazzi can’t tell what the outcome will be. Will moves with a purpose now. One he lacked earlier in the day.

“Hannibal doesn’t pray, but he believes in God, intimately,” Will answers back. He is still deep in Hannibal’s head from looking at the scene.

“I wasn’t asking Hannibal Lecter.”

“I think my prayers would feel constricted by the saints, apostles, and Jesus Pentocrator. How do your prayers feel?” His prayers did feel constricted, but not so much by the audience. More so by the fact he hadn’t been sure about what he wanted until a few minutes ago.

“I hope my prayers escaped, flown from here to the open sky and God.”

“Praying you catch him? You should be praying he doesn’t capture you.” Will stands up and walks around the front of the chapel. He can feel Hannibal close.

“I didn’t head the Questura di Firenze for nothing.”

Will wanted to laugh at that. “You couldn’t catch him when he was just a kid what makes you think you’re going to catch him now?”

“You.”

There it is. Just like Jack. He is a lure to Pazzi. Just like the flies he used to make before the hobby was tainted by the fact Hannibal broke into his house and used the remnants of his kills to complete the flies and frame Will. When Pazzi looks at him and all he has been through, he sees nothing more than a tool. “What makes you think I want to catch him?”

Pazzi’s words fadeout. They are no longer of importance. Will notices the candles burning in the catacombs, sees a vision of blood. “If you could possibly be content. I would suggest you let Il Mostro go.”

Pazzi thinks back to the call he made to Mason Verger. He thinks about the embarrassment he has felt for the last 20 years at the hand of Il Mostro. “I can’t do that anymore than you can.”

Will shakes his head in slight disbelief. “He’s going to kill you, you know? I’m usually right about these things.”

“He let you know him. He sent you his heart. Where has he gone now?”

Will looks back towards the basement and the flickering candles. “He hasn’t gone anywhere. He’s still here.”

***

Will hopes Pazzi has the good sense not to follow him as he makes his way through the winding halls of the catacombs. There are robed skeletons around every corner and the deeper down the hall he goes, the colder it gets. He can’t hear Hannibal, but he can feel his presence, like a magnet pulling him towards the correct forks in the road. He tries to gauge how far away he is. “Hannibal,” he calls out into the stillness. It feels good to say his name out loud. It is the first time he has used his first name while talking to the man.

Will walks towards a noise he heard up ahead only to find Pazzi in front of him, gun drawn. He immediately lowers it as Will gets closer. “You shouldn’t be down here alone.” Will's words come out hard a steel. 

“I’m not alone. I’m with you.” Pazzi’s confidence was disturbing. Will felt the need to crush it.

“You don’t know whose side I’m on.”

“What are you going to do when you find him? Your Il Mostro?”

“I’m… I’m curious about that myself.” Will’s gaze is drawn to the next fork in the path up ahead. The pull that has been leading him through, feels like it has stopped. Hannibal is just up ahead. Listening. Will would bet money on it, but he is here, wasting time with Pazzi and his misguided attempts to use Will.

“You and I carry the dead with us, Signor Graham. We both need to unburden.” It was a plea of sorts.

“Why don’t you carry your dead back to the chapel before you count yourself among them?” The threat was veiled, but only slightly.

“You are already dead. Aren’t you?” Pazzi’s eyes glint with a bit of anger and defeat.

“Buonanotte, Commendatore.” Will backs away into the darkness that he knows is cloaking Hannibal. As he heads down the path, he feels the other man start walking away again.

“Hannibal,” he calls out again. He feels him stop. Waiting. Listening. Will doesn’t know what to say at first. He closes his eyes and wills himself to stop thinking and just say the first thing that feels true. “I forgive you.”

Hannibal looks back to where he can hear Will’s words. The words he has wanted to hear since the night he dragged his knife through Will’s stomach and held him close to him. Should he go to him? Was he ready for that? No. No he wasn’t. Not yet, anyway. He can also hear that Pazzi had not taken Will’s advice and is still in the catacombs. Their reunion will need to wait. Hannibal makes his way out of the basement. When the cool night air hits his face, he looks up towards the sky and takes a deep breath. He will see Will soon. Just not today.

Will can feel when Hannibal leaves the catacombs. It feels colder, emptier. He knows he heard him. Will heard the sharp intake of breath up ahead. He had traveled thousands of miles to see Hannibal, but he would not force his company. If Hannibal did not want to walk the few feet to greet him, he would respect that. There were mountains of unsaid words between them. It would take time, and he knows firsthand how volatile Hannibal can be if he felt cornered.

Will shakes his head a bit to clear it. He isn’t quite sure what he would do if Hannibal closed the distance between them. He starts to walk back to the chapel when he hears something clatter to the floor up ahead. He quickens his pace only to find Pazzi around the corner. He had not heeded his warning. “What are you still doing here?” Will asks, a bit more venom in his voice that he had expected.

“I thought Il Mostro would come to you. Make himself known.” Pazzi shuffles his feet a bit. He had taken Will’s veiled threat seriously, but could not help himself. He had been trying to catch Hannibal for decades. The thought of him being right here, in the same room with him, was too much temptation.

“I thought I told you to go back to the chapel with your dead before you count yourself among them.” Will takes a step towards Pazzi. Pazzi mirrors his footwork and takes a step back.

“I cannot be content knowing I did not try everything in my power. I cannot let Il Monstro go.” Pazzi takes in Will’s posture, to the untrained eye, he looks relaxed with his hands in his pockets, but Pazzi is not untrained. Will is wound tight. A snake coiled to spring. His hand is not just in his pocket. The tendons in his wrist betray that his right hand is clenched tightly around something.

“You thought if you followed me, I would lead you to him and what? Step aside?” Will takes another step as he tilts his head to the side. “I told you before, you don’t know whose side I am on.”

“You also said Hannibal was going to kill me.” Pazzi felt gooseflesh bloom on his arms and the hair stand up on the back of his neck as he saw the look in Will’s hard eyes.“You said you were rarely wrong when it came to those things and Hannibal Lecter is no longer here.”

Will takes another step toward Pazzi as the detective steps back and feels the stone wall behind him. A smile tugs at Will’s lips, but it does not touch his eyes. “Maybe I got the what, but not the who.” He pulls a blade from his pocket and closes the distance between him and Pazzi. He knocks the gun from his hands and pushes him roughly against the wall. He stabs between Pazzi’s ribs on his right side. The man slumps down the wall and crumples to a heap on the ground. Left on its own, the wound would take hours to cause him to bleed out and it gives Will an idea. “Commendatore, I think you may just get your wish, just not the way you expected.” Will slams the man’s head against the wall to knock him out. He was going to need supplies.


	2. The Hanged Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal receives Will's first gift and takes some time to decipher its meaning and how he will respond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone. Quick note: The italicized portion that mentions Abigail is a flashback. I wasn't sure how to make that clear with formatting and I didn't want it to be too jarring. Thank you all, and hope you enjoy this chapter. <3

By the time Hannibal arrives back to his and Bedelia’s apartment, she has already gone to bed. He makes a promise to himself that he will leave before she awakes. He is not ready for the conversation she will want to have.

***

It is a longstanding habit for Hannibal to keep up with the happenings with local law enforcement. A bit of cash in the right hands and he can ensure a heads up if they were getting close, if it is time to run, or if could he get away with another tableau. When he checked in with the gossip surrounding the Questura di Firenze the next morning after seeing Will in the Chapel, everyone was talking about Rinaldo Pazzi’s wife and how she refused to leave until they started investigating her husband as a missing person. Evidently, he hadn’t come home last night.

 _Curious._ He makes his way to the Norman Chapel. He does not see Will in any of the pews, so he makes his way further inside. He stops to light a candle, he isn’t sure what for anymore, but it seems like something he should do. He strikes a match. He feels a strange mixture of emotions since seeing Will and hearing him call out to him. He is doubting the decision to walk away. Maybe he should have gone to him, and, what? What could he possibly have said? In all his thinking, his lit match has burned down the wooden handle and burned the tips of his fingers.

It didn’t use to be like this. He didn’t use to be like this. Hannibal had rarely doubted himself or his decisions before meeting Will Graham. He wasn’t fielded away to distraction and daydreams or anything so trite, until he met Will Graham. Hannibal heaves a sigh and strikes another match, lighting the candle, and replacing it among the others. He turns his head and sees the candles in the catacombs still flickering.

Could he…

Hannibal waits until no one is watching and makes his way into the twisted maze of skeletons and dark stone hallways. He follows the same path he did the night before until he starts to feel silly. What is he doing? What does he think he is going to find down here? He left Anthony Drimmond’s body twisted and broken into a physical representation of his broken and mangled heart in the place that acted as his sanctuary when his mind was too loud. He hadn’t expected Will to be able to see the display in person. That had been both pleasant and anxiety inducing. Now here he was following flickering candles, surrounded by the long dead.

Hannibal decides to turn around when he smells the scent of fresh blood. A body maybe not so long dead. He speeds up his pace, turning the last corner until he is standing in the crossroads Will had stood in when he told Hannibal he forgave him. Hannibal can’t believe his eyes.

Hannibal may have given Will his heart, but Will wrote his forgiveness out in blood. The scene in the catacombs brought to mind “Crucifixion” by Niccolò di Pietro Gerini. The painting was also on display in the Uffitizi Gallery, but there were some definite changes influenced by Matthew Brown, and if you knew what to look for, shades of Abigail throughout the scene.

Pazzi’s body is framed under one of the many archways in the catacombs. The robe clad skeletons on either side of the archway took the place of Mary and the Apostle John found in the original painting. Pazzi’s arms are tied with paisley patterned scarves to a broom handle placed behind his back to act as the horizontal points of the cross. His wrists are sliced with deep, vertical incisions. Hannibal took a step closer. There is no hesitation marks. The cuts are clean and almost to the bone.

Hannibal remembers that in the original piece, angels held bowls to catch the blood from Jesus’ wounds. Instead of angels catching the blood from Pazzi’s wounds, a collection plate is placed on the ground on either side to collect the drops of blood trickling from the slices down his wrists. The bowls are full of blood and are spilling out onto the stone floor. His body is balanced using a noose around his neck and a bucket at his feet.

“Dear Will,” Hannibal breathes as he moves closer. Drawn to the body and the message it represents. “Did you do this for me, or for yourself?” Hannibal reaches out to touch the scarves used to tie the body to the handle, but holds himself back just before his fingers meet the fabric tied to Pazzi’s wrists.

***

_When Abigail was in the hospital, forced into group therapy sessions she would wear loudly pattered scarves to cover her scar. Upon faking her death and having her stay with him, Hannibal was helping her move past them._

_“You should not hide. What you have overcome is immense. Only the strong would have survived,” Hannibal says as he slowly reaches towards the scarf looped around her neck._

_“I look like a freak. People think I’m weird,” Abigail doesn’t move away from his extended hand. She knows what he is going to do, and while she wants to wear the scarf, she will not stop him from removing it._

_“There is nothing wrong with being weird. Out of the two of us, I assure you, I am much weirder,” he smiles down at her and she can’t help but smile back. She takes a deep breath as he removes the scarf. She reaches up to touch the scar, but Hannibal’s hand is already there. He places his hand on her neck and traces the scar left by her father with his thumb. “Think of it as a reminder that you survived. We all have scars. Some are visible and others are not, but make no mistake, people like us are held together by the scar tissue earned by surviving. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”_

_Abigail looks up at him and smiles. “Do you want the others?” she asked as she walked towards her closet._

_“Only if you want to.”_

_Abigail reached for a box at the top of her closet and when Hannibal can see into it, he can see that it was full to bursting with the same kind of loudly patterned scarves. She hands it to him with a shy smile._

_Hannibal grins back. “Shall I show you the fire pit in the backyard?”_

***

Hannibal can feel his eyes begin to burn. He needs to get out of here. He has plenty of time to think through what all this means, but standing in front of the corpse of the police office who was investigating him is not the place.

Hannibal makes his way back to the apartment he and Bedelia share. He walks over to the piano and runs his fingers across the keys to check the tuning. When he is satisfied, the piano is in tuned properly he begins playing. The tune is aimless at first, he is more using it as a way to sort his emotions than actually playing any particular song.

He hears Bedelia enter the apartment, but does not stop playing. He can no longer put off this conversation. She steps into the living room where Hannibal is playing and sits on one of the chairs that faces the piano. She bends down to remove her shoes. “How was Palermo?”

“I ran into Will Graham,” Hannibal says, not looking up.

Bedelia’s fingers falter on the clasp of her heel.

“He said he forgave me,” Hannibal says the words slowly, like he is savoring the words, tasting them before saying them aloud.

“Forgiveness is too great and difficult for one person. It requires two: betrayer and betrayed. Which one are you?” Bedelia cocks an eyebrow at Hannibal, interested to hear the answer.

“I'm vague on those details.”

“Betrayal and forgiveness are best seen as something more akin to falling in love.” She stands and walks over to the bar cart, turning her back to Hannibal letting her words hang in the air as she pours herself a glass of wine before returning to the chair.

“You cannot control with respect to whom you fall in love.” Hannibal’s eyes are unfocused. “He left me a gift,” Hannibal’s fingers move across the keys, the song he is playing becomes more complex, a cacophony of notes. Bedelia waits for him to continue, piercing him with her gaze. “Do you remember the inspector I told you about? The one who had investigated me before?” Bedelia nods. “He had given Will photos of Anthony. He tried to use Will as Jack Crawford had done in the past. Use him to get close to me. Will knew where I was. Knew how to find me.” His fingers move even faster now. The tone of the music almost overwhelming with heaviness and fear. “He knew I was below the chapel. He went to find me. Pazzi, the inspector, followed us. Will made a few veiled threats, but Pazzi did not leave. He could not give me up.” Hannibal’s eyes are closed as the speed of the notes slows slightly. He plays for a few moments without speaking. Bedelia isn’t sure which “he” Hannibal is talking about at the moment.

When Hannibal doesn’t continue, Bedelia prompts him. “The gift?”

Hannibal looks down at the scars on his wrists. They are healed, but still show the ragged edges of the initial cuts. Matthew Brown had sliced him open savagely. Torn his wrists opened so they poured blood onto the floor. The original stitches were not up to Hannibal’s standards and as soon as he was home, he had removed them and restitched his wounds. Will had done this. By proxy of course. He had torn him open, bare, and bleeding.

“When Will realized what I was, when he was in the BSHCI, he sent a man after me. A fan of his, one could say. He got rather close. Closer than I care to admit.” Bedelia’s eyes follow Hannibal’s gaze and she sees the scars on his wrists. She had seen them before, of course, but did not ask. Scars like that usually held a heavy story. Hannibal did not react well to being cornered into telling heavy stories. Best to lead him and let him make the final steps himself. “Will and I are square on this front. I sent an old patient after him. He had an identity disorder. He felt that he was a great beast with sharp claws and long teeth. He tried to tear Will apart in his home.” Hannibal’s lips twitch at the memory.

“What happened to your patient?” Bedelia asks but fears she knows the answer.

Hannibal smiles slightly as he continues playing the piano. The tune morphing into one that Bedelia is familiar with. “Will killed him of course. With his hands. As he thought about killing me.” Bedelia’s eyes widen and she frowns slightly. Hannibal sounds proud and the smile on his face as he recollects his and Will’s history reflects the same. “He brought his body to me. Said we were ‘Even Steven,’” Hannibal chuckles softly. “We displayed him together. In death, we made him into the creature he so desperately wanted to be in life. It was beautiful.” Hannibal looks back down at the keys. He is thinking hard about something before he looks up and says, “I think the meat he brought to my home was from Randall Tier. He said it was Freddie Lounds, but we all know that wasn’t true.” The slightest bit of anger flits over his face before he gets a handle on it. “But I know that taste. The animal died afraid. The chemicals released during fear makes the meat bitter. If I am right, Randall Tier, the man who fancied himself a beast died afraid of Will Graham.” The slight smile is back. Bedelia had seen more emotions in Hannibal’s features during this one conversation than she had the whole time they had been in Florence.

“The gift, Hannibal?” she asks again before taking another sip of wine.

Hannibal chuckles again. “I am getting to it, darling, I promise.” He continues playing the familiar tune. “I have ears within the local Policia, just in case. I heard early this morning that Pazzi’s wife has reported him missing.”

Bedelia cocks an eyebrow. “Really? Can she do that after such a short time gone?”

“Not officially, but they are looking for him. Though, it may take them a while to find him.” Hannibal’s smile is wide now, enough to show teeth. The song he plays is no longer the familiar tune, it has morphed into something more. The music swells. “He is in the catacombs of the Norman Chapel posed as I was meant to be by Will’s would be assassin. He added other bits to his design. I see some influence from one of my favorite paintings as well as,” Hannibal’s fingers falter on the keys for a moment, hitting a sour note before recovering, “some reminiscences of our Abigail.”

Bedelia is at a loss for words for a moment. She finishes her glass of wine, watching all the emotions that Hannibal is feeling flicker across his face as she hears them mirrored in the notes filling the space around them. For a while, the only sound is the piano as Hannibal is lost in thought, letting the music his fingers prompt from the keys say all the things he isn’t sure how to say with words.

“They will think the same person who left the mangled body in the chapel killed Pazzi,” she says finally, pouring herself another glass of wine.

“Let them,” Hannibal says with an unconcerned shrug.

“No longer interested in preserving the peace here you found?”

“You cannot preserve entropy. It gradually descends into disorder.” The music becomes more complex. It is building up again.

“You're drawing them to you, aren't you? All of them.” As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she knows they are true. “Wait, if Pazzi knew you were responsible for the heart in the chapel and he knew you were here, why didn’t he report it to the others?” She walks over to the piano and sits down on the bench beside Hannibal. “Someone has put a price on your head.”

Hannibal nods. “As an early-warning system, a bounty is better than radar. It inclines authorities everywhere to forsake their duty and scramble after me privately.”

“You're going to get caught. It's already been set into motion.” She sets her wine glass down and turns her body to face Hannibal. Willing him to see the severity of what is happening.

“Is that concern for your patient or concern for yourself?” Hannibal’s fingers fly over the keys and his eyes follow his fingers. He has not physically acknowledged that Bedelia is sitting beside him.

“I'm not concerned about me. I know exactly how I will be navigating my way out of whatever it is I’ve gotten myself into. Do you?” Bedelia reaches out and places a hand on his shoulder.

“I did,” he says as the song comes to an end. A single melancholy note hangs in the air around them. His fingers still hover over the keys.

“How does Will Graham fit into all of this?”

“I’m not sure yet.” Hannibal furrows his brow, still looking at the keys. “We have a lot to discuss. He and I.” Hannibal’s lips twist into a lopsided smirk.

“Will you seek him out?” Bedelia removes her hand from his shoulder and her eyes widen, betraying the tinge of fear she feels.

Hannibal’s smirk is now a leer. His sharp teeth are visible below his full upper lip and he turns to face Bedelia. “I won’t have to. He will come to me. I just have to send the right invitation.”


End file.
